Giuliani defends immigrant policies during Q-C stop
TODAY: (Updated 1:55 p.m.) Rudy Giuliani vigorously defended his policies toward illegal immigrants while the mayor of New York City, saying today they were necessary to make the city safer.
The Republican presidential candidate made a quick stopover in the Quad-Cities on the way from California to New York.
Giuliani sampled a Magic Mountain at Ross’ Restaurant in Bettendorf, then poked around farm implements at the John Deere Collectors Center in Moline.
The two public appearances lasted a little more than an hour, but it gave Giuliani an opportunity to meet voters from the first caucus state, Iowa, then people who will go to the polls Feb. 5 in a newly advanced Illinois primary.
Giuliani has been targeted in Iowa by rivals for policies in New York that discouraged city workers from asking the immigration status of school children, people reporting crimes or those seeking medical attention. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney launched a radio ad recently implicitly attacking the policies.
Giuliani said they were begun initially under a predecessor, Ed Koch, but he continued them as part of a pattern of policies aimed at making the city safer.
“I reduced crime, created more security. I created a much greater increase in quality of life than anybody in America in the 1990s,” Giuliani said, adding: “If you don’t allow illegal immigrants to report crimes and the federal government has let 400,000 illegal immigrants in your city, you’re not going to be able to reduce crime for everyone else.”
Romney has said such policies, as well as statements encouraging illegal immigrants to come to the city contributed to the problem in the country today.
Giuliani, who got into the Quad-Cities after midnight, shook hands with midday diners at Ross’ before visiting with a half dozen women over a cup of coffee.
At first, he declined a Ross’ staple, a Magic Mountain, with a “No, thanks.” But later he took some bites of the dish, which consists of grilled Texas toast and steamed ground beef topped by french fries and melted cheddar cheese.
“It’s excellent,” Giuliani said.
Afterward, he toured the Deere center, where vintage tractors and other implements are on display, at times turning the heads of bystanders who had no idea the candidate would be here.
Jack Kirik, of Moline, said he was leaning toward backing him.
“To me, the most important issue is terrorism, and I think he’s the most qualified of any of them,” Kirik said. “He understands the nature of the threat.”
He also said he is considering Romney.
Giuliani, while declining to comment on Romney's rollout of his health care plan today, did make it a point to target Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who laid out her own ideas Thursday on how to improve health-care quality. Giuliani called it a large expansion of government into the health-care field.
"This is Hillary care times something or other, from back in the 1990s," he said. "Hillary care is back again."
Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com. Comment on this article at qctimes.com.